Miles Wrote
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> I know Ted wants to argue that there is a distinction between the "bad"
> capitalist notion of freedom and the genuine Ted-Marxist(tm) notion of
> free self-determination. However, this distinction between false
> freedom and true freedom is in itself an ideological product of our
> society (for God's sake, even George Bush uses the rhetoric of true
> "self-determination" to contrast the noble U. S. with the jihadists who
> claim they are freedom fighters!). Thus, in perpetuating the notion of
> "genuine self-determination", we inadvertently reinforce the ideological
> bulwarks of our capitalist society.
>
I won't enter this debate as it pertains to NC and MF. But I do want to say that I think you are being a little un-generous (i know kettle pot and all that) to Ted here. What I get form Ted is not his own trade marked reading of Marx but rather a pretty well established contention that Marx has different notion of human freedom and nature than either Kant or Hegel and by extension he seeks to use this reading of Marx against M Foucault. To call it Trade Mark Ted can only be read pejoratively. Perhaps it would help if Ted would place his differentiation of Marx from Foucault more explicitly in the broader philosophical context from which it hails.
On the claim that "we inadvertently reinforce the ideological bulwarks of our capitalist society:" Part of what Marx meant by critique was a retrieval of the rational kernel within liberal political economy and the German enlightenment. Similarly there is a rational Kernel in Bush's, republican's and Democrat's use of the concept of genuine self determination. The task should not be to discredit the concept but rather to show why and how the use of it is either a perversion of the concept or that their own policies can't possibly lead to that goal and hence show them up as being cynical.
Travis